The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

[wonko]

Oh, here's a question. At the bottom of the rider list on the right hand side of the screen, Zwift will say "+20 in group". That value doesn't seem to change (especially during a race), so what group is it actually referring to?

Well done for sticking with it.
I've wondered about that message as well. This morning I did a chase race and had a '2 more in group'' even though I was the only one in cat A - I'm guessing it was because there were 2 others that signed-up but didn't show.

 

[#Chri5#]

Joined a crit on Downtown Dolphin yesterday morning. Thought I'd be okay as it's pretty flat but the one climb is long enough to put you into the red. The rest of the circuit wasn't long enough for me to recover, so I got dropped on lap 5 and tempo'd round the second half.

I then had some spare time before tea, so thought I'd cruise round the medium ride to tick off stage 2 of the Tour of Watopia. I'm my own worse enemy at times - I joined early enough to be near the front, so it turned into a threshold level smash-up to stay in the top 200

Good news though - my ZRS has gone up from 355 to.... 357

 

[Martynt74]

Anyone know of any downside to using a really old crappy bike as a turbo bike?

My dad has a rust bucket of an old Focus Hybrid bike. My plan would be to combine with the Zwift Hub, so in theory all i need is the frame/handlebars and cranks. The size is decent for me and so i can't think of a reason not to use it really. I've some spare Tourney crankset that i could use if i needed to change anything.

 

[#Chri5#]

Anyone know of any downside to using a really old crappy bike as a turbo bike?

My dad has a rust bucket of an old Focus Hybrid bike. My plan would be to combine with the Zwift Hub, so in theory all i need is the frame/handlebars and cranks. The size is decent for me and so i can't think of a reason not to use it really. I've some spare Tourney crankset that i could use if i needed to change anything.

My turbo bike is my old Planet X SL Pro Carbon which must be 14 years old now and lives on the turbo. Crankset is a "franken-crank" mix of Ultegra arms and random chainrings. The headset is seized solid from sweat. I'm down to one bottle cage held on by one bolt as I sweated the rivnuts off the other mounts.

 

[UTmaniac]

Anyone know of any downside to using a really old crappy bike as a turbo bike?

My dad has a rust bucket of an old Focus Hybrid bike. My plan would be to combine with the Zwift Hub, so in theory all i need is the frame/handlebars and cranks. The size is decent for me and so i can't think of a reason not to use it really. I've some spare Tourney crankset that i could use if i needed to change anything.

Since getting my Saris H3 in Easter '22, that replaced my Elite Direto from Xmas '17, I've only ever had it set up for my marasa hybrid from summer '20. Mainly because my long covid started before I started using the turbo in autumn '22.

I'm thinking of making the effort to put my road bike on the turbo, which means a cassette swap, so that my cheap hybrid is available to easily get outside between now and spring '25.

My road bike is ~7.5 years old now, but I've never taken it out on wet roads, because I know I don't want the agro of cleaning the drivetrain of gritty water and I don't want the extra wear from a gritty drivetrain. Bizarrely, I'm even more fussy now, having fitting my carbon VEL rims back in June. Over the past 7 winters, I think I've only taken out during one exceptionally dry spell in early Jan one year, sometime around '20.

 

[AndyCr15]

Anyone know of any downside to using a really old crappy bike as a turbo bike?

For me, just the fact that it's old and crappy, like gear changes not always working etc. I think I was less enthusiastic about riding indoors when the experience was not so nice. If you're fine with it, then I don't see why not.

 

[Martynt74]

For me, just the fact that it's old and crappy, like gear changes not always working etc. I think I was less enthusiastic about riding indoors when the experience was not so nice. If you're fine with it, then I don't see why not.

Yeah. I think I’d be annoyed normally, but with the Zwift hub simulating gear changes with electric buttons it feels like that’s minimised.

I’d likely only use it for structured training maybe once a week or evening rides when it’s dark rather than replacing outdoor riding completely.

 

[robj20]

At the minute I just leave my bike in the smallest gear and use ERG mode all the time. Just set the power and ride no gear changes necessary. Might eventually upgrade my Wahoo Kickr Core to the Cog thing I hear you just buy the kit and use your current free hub rather than the one that comes with the kit.

 

[fez]

At the minute I just leave my bike in the smallest gear and use ERG mode all the time. Just set the power and ride no gear changes necessary. Might eventually upgrade my Wahoo Kickr Core to the Cog thing I hear you just buy the kit and use your current free hub rather than the one that comes with the kit.

Is there a reason you are leaving it in the smallest gear? I would suggest varying the gears you use to spread out wear and also, the smallest gear likely isn't a great chainline so you are better off working out which gears give you the best chainline to minimise wear.

 

[robj20]

Is there a reason you are leaving it in the smallest gear? I would suggest varying the gears you use to spread out wear and also, the smallest gear likely isn't a great chainline so you are better off working out which gears give you the best chainline to minimise wear.

Feel. It's a MTB so my chainring is only 36t. The larger the rear gear the worse it feels.

 

[grudas]

question to those with wahoo trainers and zwift, anyone know how this works exactly?

I set my trainer in wahoo to :

egr power smoothing on
egr mode speed simulation off

is this correct, what do you use with zwift - and do these settings even matter in zwift?

I find that I often spin out and say freewheel results in me just spinning "nothing" my power drops to 0 and my resistane is 0 too from the trainer until I catch up, this seems to keep my RPM quite high - 100+ average, compared to real world riding of around 85-90 which is where I'd like to be. - trying to figure out what I should set on zwift to get a better feel, my thinking is egr on would allow me to spin slower and produce same watts without having to constantly flick between virtual gears.

another question, trainer difficulty, my current is default 50%, from what I read on zwift, 100% simulates real climbs etc best, 50% makes it a bit easier, but what's the general, do we just leave it at 50% or increase it to max for "real world" feel?

 

[Junglist]

another question, trainer difficulty, my current is default 50%, from what I read on zwift, 100% simulates real climbs etc best, 50% makes it a bit easier, but what's the general, do we just leave it at 50% or increase it to max for "real world" feel?

The trainer difficulty seems to confuse everyone. You still need to produce the same amount of watts to make progress but reducing the TD would be like giving yourself a wider range of gears.

I have a 52/36 crank-set with a 11-28 cassette on my trainer. There is zero change with a 36-28 I'd get up the bigger climbs in the game but I still want it to be fairly representative so i keep my TD ~75%-80%. No idea about the maths but in my mind I like to think it gives me something equal to a 50/34 with 11-34 at the back at and equal to 100% if I actually had that equipment.

No idea if I am making sense or not - probably not


Edit: Don't the wahoo kickrs allow you to have virtual gearing? If that was the case I'd put on my preferred gearing and put the TD at 100%. That's what I would favour, anyway.

edit 2: I'm assuming your mean an actual Kickr bike and not the Kickr trainers.

 

[grudas]

The trainer difficulty seems to confuse everyone. You still need to produce the same amount of watts to make progress but reducing the TD would be like giving yourself a wider range of gears.

I have a 52/36 crank-set with a 11-28 cassette on my trainer. There is zero change with a 36-28 I'd get up the bigger climbs in the game but I still want it to be fairly representative so i keep my TD ~75%-80%. No idea about the maths but in my mind I like to think it gives me something equal to a 50/34 with 11-34 at the back at and equal to 100% if I actually had that equipment.

No idea if I am making sense or not - probably not


Edit: Don't the wahoo kickrs allow you to have virtual gearing? If that was the case I'd put on my preferred gearing and put the TD at 100%. That's what I would favour, anyway.

edit 2: I'm assuming your mean an actual Kickr bike and not the Kickr trainers.

I've got the kickr core, so a trainer with a bike attached to it, I've also got the zwift play controllers with virtual gears if I want to use them.

currently the bike sits on a zwift cog - so "single" gear essentially with resistance controlled using virtual gears.. my understanding from zwift wiki was that 100% difficulty is representative of real world aka if you want to experience real climb gradient for example.

 

[UTmaniac]

another question, trainer difficulty, my current is default 50%, from what I read on zwift, 100% simulates real climbs etc best, 50% makes it a bit easier, but what's the general, do we just leave it at 50% or increase it to max for "real world" feel?

Many race with trainer difficulty in the 25-40% ballpark, allowing more power to be applied on downhills and giving more gear options for climbs.

100% gives maximum gradient simulation on climbs, but descent gradients are simulated to half their gradient even on max setting, so a 4% descent would feel like 1% at 50% trainer difficulty.

 

[Junglist]

I've got the kickr core, so a trainer with a bike attached to it, I've also got the zwift play controllers with virtual gears if I want to use them.

currently the bike sits on a zwift cog - so "single" gear essentially with resistance controlled using virtual gears.. my understanding from zwift wiki was that 100% difficulty is representative of real world aka if you want to experience real climb gradient for example.

Ah, I thought you meant one of the Kickr bikes. Isn't the whole selling point of the cog that you can do virtual gears? If that was the case I'd just use the TD at 100% with your correct gearing.

 

[grudas]

Many race with trainer difficulty in the 25-40% ballpark, allowing more power to be applied on downhills and giving more gear options for climbs.

100% gives maximum gradient simulation on climbs, but descent gradients are simulated to half their gradient even on max setting, so a 4% descent would feel like 1% at 50% trainer difficulty.

that is very interesting, especially the descents, that makes a lot of sense as every descent feels like a grind in it's own way, so getting higher speed seems much harder than on a real bike going down a 6% descent for example. So from that I would ideally set my trainer to that 25-40% figure and simply use the gears more - currently I sit in the 8-12 virtual gear and rarely go above/below that.

Ah, I thought you meant one of the Kickr bikes. Isn't the whole selling point of the cog that you can do virtual gears? If that was the case I'd just use the TD at 100% with your correct gearing.

yeah, guess the point is that you avoid using your gears and just allow the trainer to increase/decrease the difficulty/resistance when selecting X virtual gear.

 

[Roady]

Hell I'm a C now and enjoying it - the level in C now is higher than last time I was here... I'm doing better numbers, the racing is tougher and harder, really do not feel like I'm sandbagging like last time! Actually dropped myself out of my ZRL team (although still captain) as a friend in a C team got promoted to B, so we switched position. I've been a workhorse there in the TTT (my main thing I ride), contributing to the Team win on the first Scratch race with a 4th, then annoying had a zwift/bug technical last week for the points race and didn't make it in (as a punchy climber really would have suited me)... So had a point to prove on the Scratch race this week... Only went and won it! Somehow a 4.1w/kg for 5 mins still didn't get me a B promotion!
<snip>

But that puts me in the '3rd' group around the higher-middle (350-520) which I guess is high C? Somewhere near right, I'm not very often doing near 3.5 for 20/min.

Only went and smashed some power out in a Ladder race last week too... Then on the Wednesday noticed WTRL had me back up to Cat B. ZP I was still a C, then by Thursday I'm showing there a B again too! vELO back up to 1271 (from 1255) Ooops!

So I'm back into B2 for ZRL again next round, as both our 3R teams are in B2 divisions. Damn! Would be nice to get some lower B cat racing but no option in the timeslot I want with EVO! Needless to say I'm not going to be winning anything again anytime soon... My zFTP at 3.245w/kg

Oh, here's a question. At the bottom of the rider list on the right hand side of the screen, Zwift will say "+20 in group". That value doesn't seem to change (especially during a race), so what group is it actually referring to?

Yeah as mentioned - that shows riders 'signed up' to the event on Zwift... Not the 'actual' in the event when it's started. Pretty pointless! It will sometimes change - but really only in group rides when riders late join.

Good news though - my ZRS has gone up from 355 to.... 357

My ZRS now up to 472! How can you tell a 'history' of it to see your changes?!

The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App

Zwift is virtual training for running and cycling. Smash your goals and compete with others around the world. With structured workouts and social group rides. iOS and Android compatible. Trusted by the pros. Try free for 14 days.

www.zwift.com

Anyone know of any downside to using a really old crappy bike as a turbo bike?

My dad has a rust bucket of an old Focus Hybrid bike. My plan would be to combine with the Zwift Hub, so in theory all i need is the frame/handlebars and cranks. The size is decent for me and so i can't think of a reason not to use it really. I've some spare Tourney crankset that i could use if i needed to change anything.

Downsides are the fit/comfort (bars/saddle/geometry). The noise from the drivechain and any shifting. Zwift Hub? I thought that was discontinued, as was the Cog. Or is that now the Zwift One. Can't keep up with their naming!

So you buy the Cog and fit it to a Core and that makes it a Zwift One. But if you buy it with the frame it's a Zwift Ride. I think!?

question to those with wahoo trainers and zwift, anyone know how this works exactly?

I set my trainer in wahoo to :

egr power smoothing on
egr mode speed simulation off

is this correct, what do you use with zwift - and do these settings even matter in zwift?

I find that I often spin out and say freewheel results in me just spinning "nothing" my power drops to 0 and my resistane is 0 too from the trainer until I catch up, this seems to keep my RPM quite high - 100+ average, compared to real world riding of around 85-90 which is where I'd like to be. - trying to figure out what I should set on zwift to get a better feel, my thinking is egr on would allow me to spin slower and produce same watts without having to constantly flick between virtual gears.

another question, trainer difficulty, my current is default 50%, from what I read on zwift, 100% simulates real climbs etc best, 50% makes it a bit easier, but what's the general, do we just leave it at 50% or increase it to max for "real world" feel?

All About Erg Mode in Zwift

How it works, and when to use it.

zwiftinsider.com

The Right Time to Shift During ERG Workouts

Maintain power levels when transitioning from seated to standing efforts.

zwiftinsider.com

ERG more is important for riding training intervals/sessions - basically the trainer providing a set 'resistance' for you no matter the gear you're in, so you can meet the power target. The smoothing will help you for longer sets, but short intervals it'll do the opposite. I don't even know what speed simulation is...

For racing & 'free ride' type stuff on Zwift - where you want the trainer to be controlled by the environment, then it'll not be in ERG mode. Think they call it 'SIM' (simulation) mode. Don't know if your second setting does something with that. It might be totally superfluous for either on Zwift.

Don't worry about Trainer Difficulty - treat it as more 'gearing' or smoothing of gear changes. It's really how much you 'feel' gradient when you encounter it. 100% means you feel it all, default on Zwift is 50% so when you hit a 10% climb it only 'feels' like 5% - from a gearing and effort perspective.

Lowering difficulty means you feel very little, you should need to change gear less when trying to ride smooth power and encountering gradients - although your progress on screen will slow more. Setting the difficulty higher should make it 'hurt' more - you'll need to change gear more to keep speed/effort up, but by 'feeling' more of the gradient you'll benefit from changing gears more. For me (being fairly punchy) it gives me more of 'ramps' to launch off, or more effective surges when I make them. But also as I ride a bunch of TTT's where the smoothing of a lower difficulty helps more... I tend to ride with it around 65/70% rather than changing it all the time. Lots of smoother TTT teammates are running it at 30-40%.

Using the “Trainer Difficulty” Setting in Zwift

Confused by this setting? Here’s a complete explanation.

zwiftinsider.com

What’s the Best Zwift Trainer Difficulty Setting for Zwifters?

Dig into the most misunderstood and controversial setting in Zwift’s menu!

zwiftinsider.com

 

[Martynt74]

Downsides are the fit/comfort (bars/saddle/geometry). The noise from the drivechain and any shifting. Zwift Hub? I thought that was discontinued, as was the Cog. Or is that now the Zwift One. Can't keep up with their naming!

Yeah, the fit isn't too bad as it's a big frame, and then i could always stick some cheap drops if i decided i preferred it, or maybe tri bars to just lean into it.

Pretty sure it's still available, although i see Decathlon have a basic Van Rysel DD trainer for €250 and i'm wondering if that works better for me, a new cassette/deraileur wouldn't cost too much if i kept it basic. It's only really to try and get some power based workouts in which i'll likely give up on

EDIT the Basic D100 Van Rysel turbo only does 6% gradient, i'd want the D500 and then i might as well buy the Zwift offering

 

[UTmaniac]

Didn't see that one coming...

TrainingPeaks Acquires IndieVelo Indoor Cycling App

There’s always one acquisition each year that comes out of left field, and this year’s award is online training log platform TrainingPeaks announcing the acquisition of IndieVelo, which is an indoor cycling app akin to Zwift or Rouvy. Indievelo is

www.dcrainmaker.com

 

[Junglist]

I just want Trainer Road to bloody do the Zwift integration already!!